LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Gl  FT    OF 


Sr:. 


inaugural  Address 


The  College 


President  John  Hanson  Thomas  Main,  Ph.  D. 


.i.i    '-.I  .        •••    ;     - 

Tuesday,  June  Twelfth 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  Six 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

The  College 
Its  Ideals  and  Its  Problems 

President  John  Hanson  Thomas  Main,  Ph.  D* 


IOWA  COLLEGE  COMMENCEMENT 

Tuesday,  June  Twelfth 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  Six 


OF 

UNIVERSITY 


2,0 


Register   Print 
Crinnell.  Iowa 


3lta 


The  We  are  gathering  the  fruits  today  from 
Gifts  of  the  seed  that  was  planted  sixty  years  ago. 
the  Fathers  it  is  a  rich  harvest,  and  it  is  only  the  be- 
ginning of  richer  harvests  yet  to  come.  It  is  fitting 
that  we  turn  our  thoughts  for  a  moment  to  the  work 
of  the  pioneer  fathers  who  planted,  that  upon  them 
we  may  bestow  the  tribute  of  praise  and  love  which 
is  their  due.  Their  gifts  were  small,  but  they  multi- 
plied the  value  of  their  small  gifts  many  fold,  because 
with  them  they  gave  themselves  also.  Their  money 
was  reinforced  by  faith,  devotion  and  love.  They 
understood  the  value  and  meaning  of  education,  and 
all  they  did  in  organizing  and  developing  Iowa  Col- 
lege was  directed  by  high  ideals  —  hence  their  gifts 
had  in  them  the  elements  of  unlimited  growth.  The 
Iowa  College  of  their  day  was  a  prophecy  of  the  Col- 
lege of  our  day;  the  College  of  our  day  is  the  prophecy 
of  a  greater  College  yet  to  come.  Greater  in  size  it 
will  be,  but  not  in  the  spirit  of  devotion;  greater  in 

(3) 

162884 


its  range  of  view  and  in  its  comprehensive  grasp  of 
world  problems  it  ought  to  be;  but  greater  probably 
it  can  not  be  in  its  spirit  of  sympathy  with  human 
need.  Iowa  College  will  carry  on  its  ideals  to  a  fuller 
fruition  and  will  adjust  them  to  the  complex  demands 
of  the  present  day.  However  large  and  powerful  the 
College  may  become,  there  can  be  no  greater  work 
than  this  for  it  to  do. 

The  The  College  had  its  founding  first  in  the 
College  hearts  of  the  fathers,  and  it  has  grown  for 
Ideals  the  most  part  by  the  small  contributions  of 
poor  men  who  had  large  ideals.  It  has  accumulated  a 
spiritual  endowment  through  the  devotion  of  these 
men  which  is  priceless  and  which  nothing  can  take 
away — nothing  but  the  failure  on  our  part  to  see  and 
to  give,  to  hope  and  work,  as  they  did  who  placed 
the  College  in  our  keeping.  They  hand  down  to  us  a 
challenge  to  service;  they  give  to  us  the  ideals  of 
growth.  The  largest  asset  the  College  can  have  is 
its  ideals.  However  large  its  property,  its  income, 
and  its  pay  roll,  the  ideals  it  incorporates  are  its 
most  precious  possessions.  These  give  value  to  all 
other  possessions.  They  give  life.  They  make  of  an 
institution  composed  of  bricks  and  mortar  and  ma- 
terial things,  a  living  soul. 

What  are  some  of  the  ideals  which  we  in- 
herit?   I  venture  to  name  genuineness  as 
(4) 


the  first.  From  the  opening  day  until  this  day  there 
has  been  a  conscious  and  continuous  striving  to  elim- 
inate from  the  College  and  from  all  the  details  of  its 
work  every  suggestion  of  the  superficial.  There  has 
never  been  an  effort  made  to  secure  numbers  at  the 
expense  of  thoroughness;  there  has  never  been  any 
sacrifice  of  standards;  there  has  never  been  a  waiving 
of  ideals.  The  spirit  of  the  institution  would  not  tol- 
erate it.  The  men  who  founded  Iowa  College  were 
educated  men, — graduated  from  the  best  New  Eng- 
land colleges.  They  had  no  knowledge  of  anything 
but  the  best  in  education,  and  their  ambition  was  to 
create  for  Iowa  a  college  similar  to  those  they  knew. 
They  were  sturdy  men,  cultured  men,  men  of  strong 
initiative.  They  held  to  their  ideals.  Hence  they 
gave  an  individuality  and  a  spirit  of  genuineness  to 
the  College,  which  is  an  integral  part  of  its  life. 

Fearlessness  is  the  ideal  I  should  mention 
Fearlessness  ,        T,  „  ,,         „  ,, 

second.      It    comes  from  the    fathers. 

They  were  sure  that  the  truth  would  prevail,  and 
they  have  given  to  the  College  as  a  part  of  its  endow- 
ment, a  fearless  spirit  in  the  search  of  it.  "Know 
the  truth;  the  truth  shall  make  you  free,"  has  been 
an  implicit  thought  in  all  of  its  activities,  and  as  a 
result  there  has  been  the  largest  possible  freedom  in 
classroom  and  in  laboratory.  One  illustration  will 
suffice.  The  theory  of  evolution  was  studied  in  the 

(5) 


classroom  when  it  was  first  proposed  and  when  the 
leading  spirits  among  college  authorities — both 
here  and  elsewhere — firmly  believed  that  the  theory 
could  not  be  proven  true.  But  these  men  wanted  to 
know,  and  felt  sure,  as  do  those  who  hold  their  places 
today,  that  in  the  truth,  whatever  it  is,  there  is  safety. 
It  is  an  axiom  here  that  a  serious  search  for  the  truth 
is  the  privilege  and  duty  of  college  leaders.  In  no 
other  way  can  they  vindicate  their  claim  to  the  posi- 
tions which  they  hold. 

Regard  for  The  third  ideal  of  the  College  centers  in 
Human  Needs  its  concern  for  human  needs.  The  Col- 
lege was  founded  for  young  men;  it  was  not  con- 
templated that  it  should  be  open  to  young  women. 
The  means  were  not  at  hand  to  found  a  college  for 
women;  money  was  not  available  to  send  them  to 
eastern  institutions,  hence  Iowa  College  admitted 
women,  and  so,  without  any  formal  action,  it  became 
a  co-educational  institution.  This  incident  illustrates 
perfectly  the  spirit  of  service  and  helpfulness  which 
has  belonged  to  the  College  from  the  beginning. 
Age-long  traditions  and  ingrained  prejudices  are  not 
to  weigh  against  human  needs.  The  business  of  the 
College  is  first  of  all  to  help  men  and  women  and  to 
put  them  into  adjustment  with  life  and  the  activities 
of  life.  There  is  nothing  iconoclastic  in  this  sugges- 
tion. It  does  not  mean  an  over  emphasis  on  the  pres- 

(6) 


ent.  It  does  not  mean  the  commercializing  of  educa- 
tion. It  means  simply  this,  that  all  contributions 
from  every  source  that  have  to  do  with  the  growth  of 
the  race  and  our  understanding  of  its  growth  are  to 
be  made  tributary  to  the  education  of  the  present. 
Education  should  make  man  a  citizen  of  the  world. 
To  attain  this  end  Iowa  College  has  always  felt,  and 
feels  now  more  strongly  than  ever,  that  it  must  pre- 
serve as  an  element  of  culture,  the  rich  contributions 
of  the  past  to  history,  literature,  philosophy,  and  art, 
and  make  them  vital  elements  in  the  busy  and  exact- 
ing life  of  the  present  age. 

The  The  fourth  ideal  is  the  comprehending 

Comprehending  ideal.  It  is  the  ideal  which  gives  the 

Ideal  consciousness  to  the  College  that  it 

looks  upward  for  its  supreme  leadership.  There  is 
a  parable  in  Plato's  "Republic"  which  tells  of  men 
chained  in  a  cave  with  their  faces  turned  inward  so 
that  all  the  things  they  knew  were  the  shadows  cast 
upon  the  wall  in  front  of  them— the  shadows  made  by 
objects  going  before  the  opening  of  the  cave.  One 
of  these  men  was  finally  released.  He  went  out  into 
the  open.  He  looked  and  beheld  the  sun.  He  saw 
the  things  that  were  makingthe  shadows;  and  learned 
for  the  first  time  what  was  shadow  and  what  was 
reality.  It  is  the  ultimate  business  of  education  to 
take  the  soul  from  the  narrow,  downward,  inward 

(7) 


look,  and  turn  it  around  that  its  eye  may  see  the 
truth,  may  see  things  as  they  are.  This  is  the 
thought  that  centers  in  the  motto  of  the  College, 
"Christo  Duce."  It  is  not  a  motto  chosen  in  a  per- 
functory way.  It  grew  out  of  experience— the  ex- 
perience of  the  pioneers  who  adopted  it.  It  sees  the 
justification  and  the  reason  for  all  things,  not  in  the 
things  themselves,  but  in  their  relationship  to  what 
is  fundamental  and  supreme  in  human  life.  Human 
life  centers  somewhere.  No  culture  is  complete  that 
does  not  turn  the  soul's  eye  to  that  center.  The  eye 
of  the  world  is  turning  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  College 
more  than  any  other  human  institution  is  called  upon 
to  give  direction  and  interpretation  to  this  movement. 
"Christo  Duce"  is  a  militant  motto.  It  typifies  well 
the  spirit  of  the  men  who  determined  to  found  a  home 
and  establish  right  standards  of  culture  and  life  in  a 
new  country  under  adverse  conditions.  There  is 
nothing  static  about  it.  It  is  not  merely  -a  golden 
thought  or  a  proverb.  It  is  a  challenge.  It  is  for 
those  who  believe  in  progress.  It  recalls  the  heroic 
past  of  Iowa  College.  It  has  in  it  the  spirit  of  march- 
ing orders  for  all  the  years  to  come.  It  suggests  the 
bugle  call  and  inspires  with  the  thought  of  ceaseless 
struggle  and  advancement  under  the  leadership  of 
Him  who  said,  "I  am  the  truth." 


(8) 


There  is  nothing  antiquated  in  the  ideals 
Permanency  i  have  mentioned;  genuineness,  fearless- 
of  Ideals  ness,  devotion  to  truth,  service  in  re- 
sponse to  human  need,  and  a  forward,  upward  march 
under  the  direction  of  the  ideal  Man.  A  genuine  ideal 
is  endowed  with  both  immortality  and  eternal  youth. 
It  belongs  to  every  age.  It  adjusts  itself  to  the  de- 
mands of  a  complex  or  a  simple  society.  It  is  needed 
for  use  in  the  stage  coach  or  in  the  parlor  car.  It  be- 
longs equally  well  to  the  modern  college  and  to  the 
college  of  one  hundred  years  ago.  The  problem  of 
this  generation,  and  of  every  generation,  is  to  keep 
such  ideals  active  under  newly  developing  conditions. 
The  genuine  ideal  is  never  an  obstruction  in  the  way 
of  progress.  It  grows  with  life  and  the  understand- 
ing of  life.  It  gives  sanity  and  balance  and  vitality. 
It  sometimes  happens  that  we  identify  our  ideals  too 
closely  with  certain  methods,  or  subjects,  or  courses, 
and  our  ideal  vanishes,  so  we  think,  if  readjustments 
are  made.  The  true  ideal  abides.  We  do  violence  to  our 
ideals  if  we  bind  them  inseparably  with  special  plans 
and  arrangements.  Genuine  ideals  are  superior  to 
fixed  systems.  Of  course  they  must  protect  the  past 
and  hold  it  secure.  They  must  work  through  systems, 
but  are  not  to  be  dominated  by  systems.  They  are 
to  be  active  helpers  in  solving  the  perplexing  prob- 
lems of  the  present  and  the  future.  There  was  never 

(9) 


an  age  which  contributed  for  solution  so  many  prob- 
lems, and  which  demanded  so  many  reconstructions 
and  readjustments  in  social  and  business  relations.  I 
am  profoundly  impressed  with  the  thought  that  the 
college  must  have  a  part— a  large  part— in  solving 
these  problems,  and  in  assisting  to  make  the  neces- 
sary readjustments.  The  importance  of  any  particu- 
lar college  in  this  work  will  be  measured  largely  by 
the  genuineness  and  vigor  of  its  ideals. 

The  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  you  that  it 
Classical.  js  notlong,  as  institutions  count  time,  since 
Course  the  "classical  course"  was  practically  the 
only  college  course.  It  served  its  purpose  well,  and 
has  vindicated  again  and  again  the  claims  made  for  it. 
Today  all  the  essential  elements  in  it  hold  a  place  of 
honor  in  the  college  curriculum.  It  alone  met  the  de- 
mands of  culture  for  many  college  generations,  and 
it  seemed  destined  to  continue  indefinitely  undisturb- 
ed, until  modern  science  became  active  and  demanded 
a  larger  place.  At  first  the  claims  of  science  were 
not  allowed.  It  was  thought  that  it  would  be  a  viola- 
tion of  educational  ideals  to  grant  the  recognition 
asked.  Abundant  recognition  has  come.  Whatever 
we  may  say  of  the  lack  of  balance  in  certain  college 
courses  now  and  of  the  lack  of  consistency  in  them, 
we  freely  admit  that  scientific  studies  belong  of 
right  in  the  position  they  have  achieved,  and 

(10) 


we  wonder  at  the  reluctance  of  the  colleges  to  ad- 
mit their  claims.  They  are  cultural  subjects;  they 
are  useful  subjects.  They  contribute  to  preparation 
for  active  work  in  the  world.  This,  at  one  time,  was 
believed  to  be  a  reproach  to  a  subject,  but  it  is  no 
longer  so  regarded.  Culture  has  to  do  not  only  with 
subjects,  as  was  once  thought,  but  with  man's  work 
in  the  world  and  with  his  place  in  the  social  and  po- 
litical organizations  of  his  time.''  Our  educational 
fathers  acted  on  this  principle,  though  perhaps  they 
were  not  fully  conscious  of  it.  It  is  true  also  that 
in  our  discussions  of  the  general  subject  of  culture 
and  training  we  sometimes  forget  that  one  of  the 
functions  of  the  literary  course  of  the  former  days 
was  to  prepare  for  the  law  and  the  ministry.  It  in- 
volved a  cultural  function  and  useful  function.  It  is 
well  to  remember  this  in  present  day  discussions. 
Culture  and  usefulness  in  the  truest  sense  are 
identical. 

The  This  reference  to  educational  history  is 

Expansion  of   typical  of  the  method  of  development  in 

the  College     the  college  curriculum   and  is  made   to 

Curriculum    suggest  that  other  subjects — many  have 

done  so  already— will  in  time  make  the  same  appeal 

that  the  sciences  have  made.     In  fact,  there  is  active 

demand  now  for  larger  opportunity  in  college  courses 

and  for  more   specific    adjustments    with    possible 

(11) 

UNIVERSITY 


courses  in  technical  and  professional  schools.  Such 
adjustments — many  of  them  certainly — are  possible 
without  impairing  the  integrity  of  genuine  culture 
ideals,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  developments  along 
the  line  of  a  more  practically  correlated  work  between 
the  institutions  of  different  grades  and  types  will  take 
place  more  freely  as  material  resources  make  it  pos- 
sible. Law,  medicine,  engineering,  politics,  the  pul- 
pit, business,  all  have  their  claim  upon  the  college. 
There  is  a  cultural  basis  for  any  work  an  educated 
man  is  likely  to  aspire  to.  A  part  of  the  business  of 
education  is  to  give  capacity  to  see  things  in  their 
right  relations,  to  interpret  with  sympathy  what  has 
been,  to  understand  current  movements  and  tenden- 
cies, and,  if  need  be,  to  make  one's  self  an  integral 
part  of  them.  The  active  center  of  educational  in- 
terest is  and  always  will  be  in  things  that  are  con- 
temporaneous. There  is  no  educational  heterodoxy 
in  these  statements,  and  nothing  in  them  or  in  their 
realization,  in  fact,  to  impair  the  integrity  of  a  re- 
spectable educational  ideal.  We  study  the  past  and 
do  it  necessarily,  because  the  present  and  its  in- 
terests grow  out  of  the  past.  We  study  the  remote 
because  we  shall  never  see  the  present  in  true  per- 
spective without  it.  The  world  keeps  its  unity  as  it 
grows,  and  man  with  all  his  penetration  will  never  un- 
cover a  law  or  a  principle  that  will  challenge  its  unity. 

(12) 


The  race  also  preserves  its  unity  as  it  grows.  Edu- 
cation gets  its  direction  from  nature  and  from  the 
race.  The  center  of  interest  is  always  the  present, 
the  infinitely  complex  present,  the  resultant  of  all 
influences  and  forces  that  have  been  dominant  in  the 
past. 

The  scope  of  education  and  the  scope  of  culture 
enlarges  with  enlarging  knowledge  and  the  growing 
capacity  and  wisdom  of  the  race.  Hence  it  will  al- 
ways be  the  immediate  duty  of  every  growing  insti- 
tution not  only  to  preserve  its  ideals  and  to  hold  fast 
what  is  good,  but  to  do  so  without  neglecting  the 
present  and  the  insistent  demands  it  is  making  upon 
education  and  educated  men.  The  two-fold  duty  of 
the  College  at  this  point  is  to  preserve  its  unity, 
given  by  ideals  persistent  and  true,  and  to  give  ade- 
quate recognition  to  the  multiplying  and  reasonable 
expectations  of  society.  The  highest  function  of  a 
college  as  a  center  of  culture  is  to  preserve  and  create 
unity,  to  incorporate  in  that  unity  all  the  past  and 
present  that  is  essential  to  put  men  into  harmonious 
adjustment  with  the  life  and  thought  of  the  time  in 
which  they  must  do  their  work;  to  unify  the  varied  and 
practical  interests  of  life  in  relation  to  cultural  ideals 
—this  the  college  must  do  or  it  fails  to  attain  the  end 
of  its  existence.  Culture  has  a  larger  meaning  than 
is  usually  given  it.  Culture  is  not  confined  to  the 

(13) 


remote,  the  useless,  the  theoretical.  It  has  many 
values;  among  them  is  a  vocational  value.  A  college 
course  is  narrow,  too  narrow,  if  it  does  not  give  op- 
portunity for  the  development  of  a  vocational  interest 
along  with  the  cultural  motive.  A  free  elective 
system  loses  what  may  be  its  chief  value  if  it  neglects 
to  develop  the  peculiar  enthusiasm  that  goes  along 
with  personal  interest.  Personal  interest  is  not 
necessarily  vocational  interest,  but  it  is  quite  likely 
to  be;  and  no  harm  is  done  if  it  turns  out  to  be  such. 
If  a  college  offers  free  electives — two  score  or  more 
of  them,  all  rightfully  regarded  as  cultural  subjects 
—what  adequate  reason  is  there  why  a  lad,  whose 
cultural  interest  or  motive  has  led  him  to  study 
Greek  literature  or  American  politics,  should  not 
turn  later  in  his  course  to  histology,  mechanics, 
Biblical  interpretation,  or  sociology?  These  subjects 
are  cultural;  they  may  become  vocational,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  enlarging  purpose  of  the  upper-class- 
man. The  college  ought  to  give  direction  to  the 
various  possibilities  at  this  stage  of  the  student's 
advancement.  It  has  a  service  to  perform  for  so- 
ciety, a  service  to  which  as  yet  it  has  given  little  or 
no  attention,  in  correlating  cultural  ideals  with  life 
itself;  in  projecting  the  spirit  of  the  college  devoted 
as  it  is  to  culture,  into  the  practical  business  of  life 
with  a  view  "to  giving  culture  a  vocational  adjustment. 

(U) 


There  is  a  concrete,  a  very  specific  duty,  for  the  col- 
lege at  this  point,  and  it  shirks  this  duty  when  it  sur- 
renders all  subjects  with  vocational  bearings  to  the 
professional  and  technical  schools.  These  subjects 
are  the  very  ones  to  establish  the  continuity  of  culture 
a:id  prove  its  practicability  in  every  day  service.  If 
the  end  of  life  is  service,  as  we  believe,  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  college  to  do  more  than  hold  up  an  ideal  of  ser- 
vice; it  is  its  duty  to  open  a  way  of  approach  to  a 
concrete  method  of  realizing  that  ideal. 
Culture  The  college  has  traditional  warrant  for  re- 
and  lating  the  work  it  does  to  the  requirements 
Vocation  of  society.  The  college  in  its  early  history 
in  this  country  was  for  the  church.  That  is,  its 
chief  function  was  to  provide  an  educated  ministry. 
In  the  ministry  perhaps  the  cultural  element  in  edu- 
cation and  the  vocational  motive  were  more  nearly 
identified  than  in  any  other  profession.  But  even  in 
the  early  days  when  this  identification  appeared  al- 
most complete  the  two  i'deas  of  culture  and  vocation 
were  clearly  enough  differentiated.  The  two  ideas 
spring  from  the  same  source  and  they  need  to  be 
combined  in  any  symmetrical  life  purpose.  It  is 
a  loss  to  education — an  incalculable  loss — if  educa- 
tion for  culture  is  considered  one  thing  and  education 
for  vocation  another.  Educationally  considered  the 
two  must  be  correlated  on  the  basis  of  a  natural  kin- 
US) 


ship.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  present-day  college  to 
unite  its  cultural  ideals  with  the  constantly  multiply- 
ing vocational  opportunities.  If  the  college  is  to  per- 
petuate its  connection  with  active  life  it  must  estab- 
lish this  union  of  the  practical  and  the  ideal  for  many 
activities  as  the  earlier  college  established  it  for  one. 
Culture  belongs  to  the  whole  of  life  just  as  righteous- 
ness does,  and  the  college  should  insist  on  claims  of  cul- 
ture not  only  in  connection  with  subjects  and  vocations 
regarded  as  educational,  but  should  make  an  effort  to 
bring  others  into  relation  with  it  as  social  need  and 
development  demand  it/  The  problem  involved  in 
such  adjustments  is  a  complex  one.  It  is  becoming 
more  complex,  but  the  more  complex  it  becomes  the 
more  important  it  is  that  some  practical  means  of  ad- 
justment be  established.  The  place  for  it  is  in  the 
Junior  and  Senior  years,  when  students  are  beginning 
to  avail  themselves  freely  of  the  elective  opportuni- 
ties offered  in  this  part  of  the  college  course.  Here 
college  ideals  and  interests  come  into  relation  with 
the  world's  interests  as  expressed  in  a  greater  or  less 
number  of  elective  subjects.  It  is  not  deemed  out  of 
place  for  the  college  to  give  direction  on  a  cultural 
basis,  as  already  suggested,  to  the  course  of  a  young 
man  who  is  to  enter  the  ministry.  It  is  conceded 
that  it  may  do  the  same  thing  for  one  who  is  looking 
forward  to  the  practice  of  medicine  or  law.  Likewise 

(16) 


it  may  contribute  to  the  future  engineer  or  social 
worker  on  cultural  lines  a  large  percentage  of  his  pre- 
paration for  vocational  success.  All  of  this  is  good.  It 
is  suggestive  of  the  enlarging  scope  of  college  work, 
and  a  prophecy  of  the  time  when  the  college,  devoted 
to  culture,  may  establish  a  functional  relation  to  ac- 
tive life  at  all  possible  points  of  contact.  When  this 
time  comes  the  essential  worth  of  culture  and  the 
essential  worth  of  the  vocational  element  in  life  will 
be  immeasurably  increased. 

Such  a  result  will  depend  largely  upon  the  initi- 
ative of  the  college  and  its  ability  to  develop  a  method 
of  education  whereby  the  ideals  of  culture  may  find 
realization  in  action.  This  cannot  be  done  by  a  com- 
plete separation  of  the  cultural  and  vocational  ele- 
ments in  any  given  subject.  It  may  be  done,  in  the 
cultural  atmosphere  of  the  college,  if  at  the  proper 
time  late  in  the  course  when  it  is  largely  made  up  of 
elect! ves,  the  vocational  bearing  of  a  subject  has  due 
consideration.  This  would  contribute  to  the  ultimate 
aim  of  culture.  It  would  provide  for  the  cultural  ele- 
ment in  education  a  larger  opportunity  to  become  ac- 
tive in  the  practical  world.  It  would  also  provide  for 
a  subject  looking  more  or  less  directly  to  vocation,  an 
opportunity  to  be  studied  with  due  reference  to  its 
cultural  bearings.  This  can  practically  be  done 
for  a  subject  in  a  place  where  it  is  possible  to  con- 

(17) 


si der  the  two  elements — culture  and  vocation— in  re 
lation.  The  best  place  for  this  is  in  the  college.  It  will 
prove  a  method  also  of  saving  the  elective  system 
from  falling  by  its  own  weight,  and  from  being  a 
cause  of  disintegration  and  disorder  in  education 
rather  than  a  means  of  co-ordination  and  unity. 

The  Of  course  no  such    result  as  I  have  sug- 

Combined  gested  could  be  achieved  by  a  co'inbined 
Course  course,  such  as  has  been  adopted  in  many 
of  the  state  universities,  which  surrenders  the  stu- 
dent as  an  incoming  Junior  or  Senior  to  the  profes- 
sional school,  giving  to  it  complete  control  of  the 
student  and  the  methods  of  instruction  with  the 
understanding  that  at  the  end  of  the  first  or  sec- 
ond year  in  the  professional  school,  as  the  case 
may  require,  the  arts  degree  will  be  conferred.  A 
degree  attained  in  this  way  is  not  strictly  speaking 
an  arts  degree.  It  could  be  an  arts  degree  only  on 
condition  that  it  be  secured  by  work  done  in  a  col- 
lege which  is  primarily  a  college  of  arts.  There  may 
be  good  grounds  for  such  a  combined  course, a  course 
which  neglects  the  cultural  element  and  emphasizes 
the  time  element,  but  there  is  no  satisfactory  reason 
for  conferring  in  such  a  case  a  degree  which  is  not  won 
in  fact.  The  work  in  "arts"  ceased  when  the  student 
was  turned  over  to  the  professional  school.  At  that 
time  his  vocational  work  began  and  that  element  only 

(18) 


or      '  rY 

was  emphasized.  An  arts  degree  in  such  a  combi- 
nation does  not  fit.  It  simply  involves  a  confession 
of  inability  to  deal  with  this  important  desideratum 
which  I  have  in  mind — the  projection  and  incorpora- 
tion of  the  cultural  element  in  the  vocational  element 
of  education.  If  this  is  to  be  done  successfully,  as 
undoubtedly  it  will,  it  will  depend  upon  the  initiative 
of  the  college  and  its  ability  to  satisfy  vocational  de- 
mands on  a  cultural  basis.  This  is  one  of  the  things 
the  college  must  do  to  make  itself  indispensable  in 
modern  education.  No  one  denies  the  value  of  col- 
lege ideals.  They  are  a  most  potent  force  in  every 
forward  movement.  They  form  the  flying  goal  to- 
ward which  we  are  always  striving.  But  a  part, 
and  a  large  part,  of  the  work  of  the  college  should 
be  to  adjust  the  spirit  of  these  ideals  to  practical 
every- day  conditions.  They  must  become  valid 
in  practical  results.  The  college  has  made  no  sys- 
tematic attempt  to  do  this  in  the  past.  What  it  has 
done  in  this  direction  is  more  the  result  of  accident 
than  of  design.  It  is  beginning  to  realize  its  opportun- 
ity and  its  obligation,  and  results  of  a  more  definitely 
practical  character  may  be  expected  in  the  future. 
The  College  The  charge  is  often  made  by  successful 
and  men  of  affairs  that  the  college  unfits  men 
Business  for  business.  There  is  a  narrow  sense  in 
which  this  charge  is  true.  The  college,  when  it  does 

(19) 


the  best  for  an  individual,  gives  largeness  of  view,  de- 
velops initiative  and  strengthens  those  qualities  which 
make  one  restless  under  those  restraints  arising  from 
business  methods  which  leave  little  or  no  chance  for 
the  exercise  of  such  qualities.  Too  often  great  busi- 
ness enterprises  aim  to  use  men  as  instruments 
rather  than  as  intelligent  agents.  A  youth  who  has 
well  assimilated  what  the  college  has  to  bestow  and 
who  is  reasonably  well  endowed  by  nature  will  not 
long  rest  content,  under  such  conditions.  He  has  been 
spoiled  for  a  business  which  demands  the  surrender 
of  his  personality.  There  is  another  side  of  the  case. 
That  same  youth  has  been  prepared  for  conscious  ac- 
tivity and  for  leadership.  If  he  does  not  get  adjust- 
ment to  the  larger  world  of  affairs  where  just  such 
qualities  are  needed,  it  is  because  there  is  some  fault 
in  him  or  in  his  college  training.  The  fault  may  be 
in  both. 

Today  I  am  interested  only  in  calling  attention  to 
the  obligation  of  the  college  at  this  point.  The  college 
has  not  done  enough  to  bring  into  practical  action  the 
larger  possibilities  of  initiative  developed  by  its  train- 
ing. It  has  too  often  graduated  the  youth  without  giv- 
ing him  any  point  of  contact  with  practical  life.  This 
is  by  no  means  to  be  considered  a  fatal  objection  to  col- 
lege training  in  general,  but  it  is  an  objection  that 
deserves  consideration  and  treatment.  It  is  not 

(20) 


deemed  out  of  place  for  the  college  to  give  some  di- 
rection on  a  cultural  basis  to  the  course  of  the  young 
man  who  is  likely  to  enter  the  medical  profession, 
or  the  ministry,  or  the  law.  This  is  true  because 
there  are  a  number  of  subjects  in  the  various 
college  courses — there  by  the  demands  of  modern 
culture— which  are  essential  to  these  professions. 
These  subjects  may  be  grouped  together,  and  when 
so  grouped  they  establish  a  relationship  with  fu- 
ture work,  which  vindicates  itself  by  the  re- 
sults. These  results  suggest  an  educational  prin- 
ciple of  wide  application,  and  lead  to  the  question 
why  the  same  or  similar  consideration  should  not  be 
given  to  the  course  of  one  who  wishes  to  become  an 
actuary,  a  banker,  a  foreign  agent,  a  diplomatist  or 
a  business  man  in  the  more  general  sense  of  the 
term.  The  college  has  a  contribution  to  make  to  the 
men  who  expect  to  enter  any  of  the  callings.  Its 
contribution  should  be  larger,  and  should  be  made 
with  definite  reference  to  the  possibility  of  pro- 
jecting college  ideals  into  business  life  and  making 
them  effective  there.  The  interest  of  the  college,  of 
course,  is  not  in  the  business  man  as  such  but  in  the 
man  going  into  business.  Its  interest  is  in  so- 
ciety, and  its  interest  in  society  should  become 
more  practical  and  dominating.  The  progress 
of  civilization  and  of  the  race  is  sure  to  depend 

(21) 


more  and  more  upon  the  standards  and  ideals  that 
are  realized  in  tfie  business  world.  Standards  of  life 
in  all  relations  are  sure  to  follow  trade.  Trade  which 
involves  social  relationship  will  in  the  future  become 
a  potent  medium  of  communication  between  man  and 
man,  nation  and  nation.  It  is  of  the  utmost  import- 
ance consequently  that  the  college  give  diligent  heed 
to  the  men  who  are  going  to  make  business  their  life 
work.  The  slow  awakening  of  the  college  conscious- 
ness on  this  point  is  surprising,  especially  so  when 
considered  in  connection  with  the  need  in  business 
life  for  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  ethical  stand- 
ards and  the  ideals  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
college  to  set  forth.  It  seems  clear— too  clear  to  re- 
quire argument— that  there  should  be  opportunity  in 
every  well-equipped  college  to  study  the  fundamental 
principles  that  should  underlie  all  business  procedure. 
This  study  should  be  in  actual  relation  to  the  prob- 
lems of  finance,  commerce  and  politics.  The  abstract 
should  be  made  concrete.  Furthermore  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  college  not  only  to  offer  a  program  of 
correlation  with  life  work  to  those  who  ask  for  it,  but 
also  aggressively  to  propose  it  and  show  its  essential 
relation,  under  right  conditions,  to  cultural  education. 
The  college  should  not  wait  for  a  need  to  be  thrust  upon 
it;  it  should  be  a  leader  of  public  opinion.  It  should 
see  a  real  need  in  advance  and  provide  for  it.  There 

(22) 


is  unquestionably  a  need  for  trained  service  in  the 
business  world.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  is 
a  need  for  men  who  are  keener  in  management  and 
more  capable  to  deal  with  the  problems  of  profit  and 
loss.  There  is  a  full  proportion  of  these  now;  but 
there  is  a  need  for  men  of  culture,  for  men  who 
understand  the  fundamental  principles  of  right  con- 
duct in  business  and  social  relations.  There  is  a 
need  for  such  men  to  take  the  places  of  prominence 
and  leadership  in  the  great  movements  in  which 
politics,  diplomacy  and  trade  in  infinite  variety  of 
form,  will  each  have  a  full  share. 
A  School  The  college  of  course  is  not  to  become  a 
°f  school  of  affairs  any  more  than  it  is  to 

Affairs  become  aschool  of  theology,  or  engineer- 
ing or  medicine;  but  it  must  furnish  an  opportunity, 
let  it  be  remembered,  not  merely  for  instruction  in  a 
subject  having  vocational  bearings  —  that  may  be  done 
in  the  professional  school  —  but  to  carry  forward  into 
the  vocational  realm  the  cultural  and  ethical  ideals  L/ 
of  the  college.  Difficult?  Yes,  but  it  must  be  done. 
It  is  repeatedly  said  that  the  vocational  and  cultural 
motives  are  not  to  be  combined.  This  is  true  for 
lower  classmen;  not  necessarily  or  wholly  true  for 
upper  classmen.  Granted  that  the  college  should 
not  consider  the  possibility  of  vocational  ends  in  the 
study  of  the  Odyssey  or  general  physics;  it  does  not 


M 


UNIVERSITY 


follow  that  such  ends  are  to  be  completely  ignored  in 
studying  embryology  or  theoretical  and  experimental 
electricity,  or  finance.  The  combination  is  essential 
for  a  larger  and  more  adequate  interpretation  of  life 
and  the  business  of  life.  What  is  essential  therein 
is  cultural  in  the  largest  sense  and  the  college  must 
provide  it.  The  college,  of  course,  is  the  only 
institution  that  can  undertake  such  a  work  and  carry 
it  forward  to  a  successful  accomplishment. 

There  is  no  greater  work  for  the  college — I  mean 
the  college  as  distinct  from  the  university— than  this; 
to  make  some  practical  provision  whereby  genuine 
ideals  of  life,  such  as  the  college  stands  for,  may 
have  consideration  in  direct  relation  to  the  princi- 
ples of  business  procedure  with  the  view  of  giving 
these  ideals  a  larger  place  and  a  more  dominant  in- 
fluence in  the  world.  There  is  without  question  a 
means  of  adjustment  and  correlation  between  college 
ideals  that  are  true  ideals  and  true  and  valid  business 
principles.  The  college  must  work  toward  the  achieve- 
ment of  such  an  adjustment.  The  college  is  crit- 
icised because  of  its  remoteness  in  method  and  prac- 
tice from  business  life.  There  is  too  much  warrant 
for  the  criticism.  The  grounds  for  it  need  to  be  re- 
moved. Iowa  College  is  doing  a  good  work  in  pre- 
paring men  for  social  service  and  for  professional 
service,  in  many  different  relations.  One  practical 

(24) 


element  in  social  service  and  social  advancement  is 
trained  men  for  business  who  have  appreciation  of 
right  social  and  ethical  ideals.  To  train  men  of  this 
type  is  sure  to  become  a  recognized  function  of  the 
college.  There  will  be  men  to  train  as  soon  as  the 
college  gives  notice  of  its  intention  and  ability  to  do 
the  work.  Iowa  College  in  a  general  way  has  already 
done  much  that  is  contributory  to  the  results  to  be 
desired.  It  will  do  more,  and  do  it  with  more  posi 
tive  results,  when  it  groups  its  subjects,  with  such 
additions  as  are  necessary,  with  a  view  to  preparing 
men  for  administration  and  for  business  and  public 
affairs.  Development  along  this  line,  comparatively 
considered,  would  entail  no  great  expense.  The  li- 
brary and  recitation  rooms  are  the  laboratories  for 
such  work;  teachers  and  books  added  thereto  com- 
plete the  equipment.  You  are  to  understand  that  I 
have  no  thought  in  mind  in  this  connection  regarding 
commercial  or  professional  courses,  but  a  grouping 
for  upper  classmen  of  subjects  drawn  chiefly  from 
the  departments  of  economics,  political  science  and 
sociology.  There  is  here  already  the  nucleus  for  a 
department  of  affairs.  There  needs  to  be  simply  a 
a  grouping  of  subjects  looking  forward  to  active  par- 
ticipation in  business  life.  The  necessary  adjust- 
ments can  easily  be  made.  Iowa  College  ought  not 
to  be  slow  to  recognize  its  opportunity  and  improve  it. 

(25) 


The  The  genuine  college,  under  present-day 
College  conditions,  can  not  be  a  narrow  or  a  local 
Not  institution.  There  was  a  time  when  it 
Local  might  be  such— when  relationships  were 
narrow,  when  newspapers  were  few,  when  inter  com- 
munication was  rare,  and  when  there  was  no  unified 
system  or  method  of  business  procedure.  That  time 
is  past.  London,  New  York  and  the  village  on  the 
plains  read  the  same  news  and  discuss  the  same 
problems  at  the  breakfast  table.  There  is  universal 
contact,  universal  sympathy  and  universal  opportun- 
ity. The  human  race  is  coming  to  be  one  family,  and 
the  world  is  growing  very  small.  It  is  not  an  idle 
dream,  perhaps,  to  suggest  that  not  far  in  the  future 
one  may  sit  at  his  breakfast  table  with  telephone  re- 
ceiver at  his  right  hand  and  talk  with  his  friend  in 
Berlin  or  Hong  Kong,  "whije  the  wheat  cakes  are 
coming  in."  Things  quite  as  astounding  as  this  have 
come  to  pass  during  the  last  decade,  and  we  may  be 
sure  that  we  are  seeing  only  the  beginnings  of  mate- 
rial progress,  of  correlation  and  fellowship.  I  am 
not  interested  in  these  things  now  except  as  they  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  the  college  can  not  remain  local. 
It  can  not  maintain  a  theory  of  monastic  seclusion  in 
its  system  of  study.  It  can  not  hold  to  a  definition 
of  culture  which  was  valid  fifty  years  ago.  Culture 
is  not  a  static  thing.  It  advances  with  the  race,  and 

(26) 


must  adjust  itself  continually  to  the  enlarging  view 
of  the  race.  Hence  the  college,  a  home  of  culture 
and  ideals,  must  respond  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  if  it 
is  to  be  an  effective  ag^nt  and  helper  in  working  out 
the  complicated  problems  of  society.  It  belongs  to 
a  fellowship  extending  from  one  end  of  the  country 
to  the  other,  and  reaches  with  its  influence  the 
ends  of  the  earth  It  will  be  measured  in  the  educa- 
tional world,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  business 
world,  not  by  the  estimate  placed  upon  it  by  the  com- 
munity in  which  it  is  located,  but  by  the  resultant 
estimate,  drawn  from  many  institutions  of  recognized 
standing*  and  from  the  influence  it  exerts  on  the  com- 
munity at  large.  The  distance  of  five  hundred  or  a 
thousand  miles  does  not  remove  one  college  from  the 
educational  community  of  another  college.  Hence  it 
is  necessary  for  the  college  that  wishes  security  and 
permanency  to  provide  for  the  nationalizing  of  its 
standards. 

The  The  problem  of  this  college  and  of  every 
Standard  of  college  that  hopes  for  a  permanent  fu- 
Efficiency  ture,  is  to  achieve  the  maximum  stand- 
ard of  educational  efficiency.  This  is  the  national 
standard,  and  it  is  used  in  aU  educational  measure- 
ments— in  the  details  of  equipment,  men  and  their 
salaries,  books,  buildings,  general  opportunities,  re- 
quirements for  admission  and  graduation.  Iowa 

(27) 


College  has  known  this  fact  from  the  beginning  and 
has  always  kept  it  in  mind;  but  it  needs  to  put  spe- 
cial emphasis  upon  it  now,  ecause  now  the  growth 
of  many  educational  institutions,  from  the  material 
point  of  view,  is  extraordinarily  rapid.  Rapidity  of 
growth  in  a  few  institutions  puts  to  a  temporary  dis- 
advantage those  which  must  be  content  with  a  more 
leisurely  accumulation  of  funds. 
Growth  Now  The  typical  college  of  one  hundred  or 
and  Then  even  fifty  years  ago  grew  under  con- 
ditions very  different  from  those  which  obtain  now. 
The  college  then  had  the  time  necessary  for  normal 
growth  and  development.  It  grew  slowly  in  response 
to  the  demands  of  a  homogeneous  society,  itself  mov- 
ing slowly.  It  had  small  material  resources,  but 
there  was  none  that  had  any  notable  advantage  in 
this  respect.  It  had  few  books  and  no  trained  librari- 
an, but  this  was  true  of  all.  No  opportunity  was  of- 
fered for  precocious  development.  All  grew  alike 
under  similar  conditions  of  environment  and  main- 
tenance and  with  similar  traditions  and  ideals.  There 
was  a  certain  uniformity  of  opportunity  which  pres- 
ent-day conditions  render  impossible  even  though  de- 
sirable. The  important  point  is  this,  that  all  colleges 
with  the  real  spirit  of  life  in  them,  grew  together  with 
equality  of  opportunity  and  with  the  assurance  of 
permanency  before  any  particular  one,  close  neigh- 

(28) 


bor  to  the  others,  had  secured  in  financial  or  other 
respects  an  ascendency  conspicuous  enough  to  occa- 
sion unfavorable  comparisons,  or  to  create  a  destruc- 
tive competition.  Colleges  of  the  present  that  are 
endowed  with  the  same  traditions  and  ideals  that 
characterized  the  colleges  founded  in  the  earlier  days, 
would  grow  into  security  and  permanency  as  they 
have  done  under  educational  conditions  similar 
to  those  of  that  time.  But  the  college,  just  as  the  in- 
dividual, must  be  in  adjustment  with  the  movement 
and  the  life  of  its  age.  Hence  the  college  of  the  pres- 
ent must  grow  more  rapidly,  must  have  a-more  rapid 
accumulation  of  funds,  must  keep  in  touch  with  a 
larger  environment  and  must  maintain  a  standard 
that  will  be  accepted  as  a  national  standard. 

The  Among  the  influences  that  have  operated 

State  most  strongly  to  modify  educational  con- 
University  ditions,  particularly  in  the  middle  west, 
are  those  that  have  sprung  from  the  state  university. 
The  state  university  is  a  development  of  the  past 
fifty  years.  Within  that  time  it  has  become  the  most 
characteristic  educational  institution  in  the  Middle 
West.  It  has  established  new  standards  and  intro- 
duced new  elements  of  vast  advantage  to  the  educa- 
tional system.  It  has  reduced  the  price  of  education 
and  enlarged  its  scope.  It  has  made  an  appeal  to 
thousands  who  under  former  conditions  would  never 

(29) 


have  yielded  to  college  influences.  It  has  made  edu- 
cation democratic  in  the  largest  sense.  These  results 
have  been  achieved,  partly  at  least,  because  this  in- 
stitution was  the  child  of  the  state  and  responsible 
directly  to  the  people  of  the  state;  and  because 
further  there  was  a  certain  degree  of  adequacy  in  the 
funds  furnished,  and  the  assurance  of  stability  and 
permanence  from  the  very  beginning.  Neighbor  to 
this  institution  was  founded  at  the  same  time,  or  a 
little  earlier,  the  college  of  the  New  England  type. 
That  it  has  not  suffered  total  eclipse,  is  due  to  the 
tremendous  power  of  the  educational  ideal  for  which 
it  stands. 

Private  Another  influence  has  had  an  important 
Foundations  bearing  on  the  problem.  Recent  years 
have  witnessed  private  foundations  of  unparalleled 
magnitude,  which  have  contributed  much  to  the  mod- 
ification of  existing  standards  and  types,  and  to  the 
formation  of  new  ones.  It  is  not  true  that  state  in- 
stitutions and  private  foundations  of  extraordinary 
size,  are  a  law  unto  themselves  and  have  no  relation 
to  smaller  institutions.  They  modify  profoundly  the 
whole  educational  system,  and  modify  it  permanently. 
The  college  is  a  part  of  this  system,  and  must  reckon 
with  the  influences  operative  in  it.  Amherst  or  Wil- 
liams could  grow  together  with  Harvard  and  cultivate 
a  certain  amount  of  neighborly  indifference.  The 

(30) 


reason  is  apparent  and  has  already  been  outlined. 
But  a  vigorous  state,  or  private  foundation  providing 
for  an  institution  to  be  "made  to  order,"  and  provid- 
ing for  its  rapid  growth,  introduces  into  education  a 
problem,  involving  for  the  typical  college  complica- 
tions and  warnings,  of  which  our  educational  fathers 
never  dreamed.  For  the  college  of  today  there  is  a 
standard  of  excellence  already  set  which  it  must  sat- 
isfy. It  must  prove  at  once,  measured  by  this  stand- 
ard, its  right  to  public  support  and  confidence  and 
respect.  This  standard  is  a  composite  one — a  national 
one — and  is  the  resultant  from  the  three  dominant 
types  to  which  reference  has  been  made:  the  New 
England  college,  the  state  university  and  the  private- 
ly endowed  university.  Other  influences  have  been 
at  work,  particularly  that  of  the  school  of  technology, 
and  have  contributed  to  the  severity  of  the  present 
educational  demands,  but  for  the  purposes  of  this 
paper  they  do  not  require  separate  notice. 

The  The  standard  thus  established  involves 

College        the  known  elements  from  which  are  to 
Standard      be  determined  the  values  that  any  col- 
lege whatsoever  must  have  to  be  sure  of  permanency, 
and  an  appreciable  influence  upon  the  life  of  this  age. 
These  values,  briefly  stated,  are  as  follows: 

1.     A  recognition  of  the  elements  of  democracy 

in  education,  not  only  as  it  relates  to  persons  but 

as  it  relates  to  subjects. 
(31) 


2.  Adequate  material  equipment,  especially  in 
books,  apparatus,  and  buildings. 

3.  A  corps  of  teachers  large  enough  and  of 
the  right  quality    to  create  an  atmosphere    of 
genuine   culture  and   Christian  service.      They 
must  have  native  ability,  training  and  experience 
and   therewith  the  spiritual  endowment  of  per- 
sonality that  they  may  be  not  merely  specialists 
in  their  departments,  but  masters  of  life  in  their 
every  day  intercourse  with  young  people. 

In  these  propositions  the  aim  has  been  merely 
to  state  the  elements  which  the  development  of  past 
years  has  made  imperative  at  once  in  any  genuine 
college  for  today.  Consciously  or  unconsciously  the 
general  public  is  forming  its  opinion  of  colleges  in 
accordance  with  the  demands  these  propositions  in- 
volve. The  educated  public,  with  the  same  proposi- 
tions in  mind,  is  daily  becoming  more  critical  in  its 
judgments.  The  result  is  that  many  arguments  have 
been  eliminated  from  the  general  discussion  of  the 
problems  of  education  which  were  effectively  used  by 
those  who  have  plead  for  the  college— the  "small 
college" — in  the  past. 

The          "The  small  college"  has  been  used  as  the 
Small         subject  of  many  an  appreciation  in  which 
College        chief  emphasis  has  been  given  to  the 
qualifying  word  small.    Closer  personal  relations  with 
students  and  faculty  and  larger  opportunity  for  in- 
dividual  initiative, — these    and  other  reasons  have 

(32) 


been  assigned  for  the  educational  superiority  of  the 
small  college.  The  arguments  are  defective  because 
they  lose  sight  of  the  prime  factor  that  size  does  not 
indicate  quality.  There  is  no  essential  reason  why  a 
college  should  be  ranked  high  because  it  is  small;  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  ranked  high  because  it  is 
large.  The  question  of  size  is  irrelevant,  or  at  any 
rate  only  incidental.  The  essentials  that  mean  most 
are,  within  certain  reasonable  limits,  independent  of 
size.  The  question  for  the  college — the  small  college 
or  the  large  college — is,  does  it  meet  those  essentials. 
If  it  does,  then  it  is  certain  to  survive.  If  it  does  not, 
it  has  no  right  to  survive.  A  demonstration  that 
the  small  college  is  making  a  distinct  contribution  to 
the  life  of  the  people  and  is  therefore  necessary,  will 
be  of  no  avail  for  any  particular  small  college  that 
does  not  meet  the  manifest  requirements  of  the  age. 

What  is  a  The  term  "small"  has  given  rise  to 
Small  College?  much  confusion.  A  college  is  relative- 
ly small  in  the  nature  of  things.  A  large  college  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  used  in  America  is  out 
of  harmony  with  educational  history  and  tradition. 
A  large  Oxford  college  is  composed  of  a  maximum  of 
three  hundred  residents.  A  college  of  three  hun- 
dred in  America  is  called  small.  The  college  should 
be  large  enough  to  be  an  intellectual  and  social  cen- 
ter. But  there  are  conditions  conceivable  where  this 

(33) 


result  may  be  fully  realized  in  a  group  of  one  hun- 
dred. It  is  equally  true  that  there  are  conditions 
which  might  render  such  a  result  impossible  in  a 
crowd  of  one  thousand  or  more.  The  college  implies 
unity,  fellowship  and  a  certain  degree  of  identity  of 
interest.  Without  these  elements  a  college  in  the 
true  and  desirable  sense  of  the  term  does  not  exist. 
These  elements  are  more  easily  realized  perhaps  in  a 
smaller  body  of  students,  though  they  are  not  impos- 
sible by  any  means  in  what  might  be  called  a  larger 
body.  Iowa  College  is  a  college;  it  is  an  independent 
college;  it  does  not  aspire  to  be  called  a  small  college; 
it  does  not  aspire  for  the  mere  sake  oi'  numbers  to  be 
called  a  large  college;  but  it  aims  to  maintain  the  tra- 
ditions that  center  about  the  name.  Iowa  College 
viewed  simply  as  a  college  is  large  already;  as  to  num- 
bers it  is  small  when  compared  with  the  composite 
institutions  called  universities. 

The       Three  criteria  which  have  grown  out  of  ex- 
Three      isting   educational  conditions,   have  been 
Criteria    mentioned   as   normal  units    of  measure- 
ments in  determining  college  values.     In  discussing 
the  enlargement  of  the  scope  of  the  work,   I  have 
touched  upon  the  question  of  democracy,  and  I  shall 
not  pursue  it  further,  except  to  say  that  institutions 
must  adjust  themselves  to  the  demands  of  life;  they 
must  adjust  themselves  within  reasonable  limits  to 

(34) 


the  requirements  of  a  democratic  society.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  liberal  culture  in  the  fine  old  sense  of 
the  term  has  yet  a  service  to  perform  in  the  more 
active  and  practical  life  of  the  twentieth  century, 
which  requires  only  judicious  and  appreciative  direc- 
tion to  give  it  large  effect.  But  the  spirit  of  democ- 
racy must  run  through  the  curriculum.  Many  sub- 
jects have  been  admitted  into  the  curriculum.  Others 
are  coming  in.  Ail  are  claiming  that  they  are  and  of 
right  ought  to  be  free  and  equal  in  privilege  with  every 
other  subject  regardless  of  age-long  traditions.  The 
youth  are  coming,  too,  from  the  highways  and  the 
hedges,  with  the  strength  of  nature  in  their  bodies 
and  their  minds,  asking  for  admission  to  the  college 
and  through  the  college  for  admission  to  active  part- 
nership in  the  work  of  the  world.  The  college  must 
deal  fairly  with  subjects  and  with  people;  it  must 
create  an  educational  democracy.  If  it  is  not  able  to 
keep  dominant  the  spirit  of  culture  in  connection 
with  the  spirit  of  democracy,  because  it  is  too 
poor  -and  too  narrow,  or  because  of  incapacity  in 
any  direction,  it  will  hardly  be  able  to  meet  natural 
expectations  and  win  a  vigorous  and  a  secure  per- 
petuity. 

The  The    second    criterion — adequacy  of 

Personnel        equipment — requires  no  discussion  at 

of  the  this  time,  hence  I  pass  to  the  third  cri- 

Teaching  Force    terion  named  which  has  reference  to 

(35) 


the  personnel  of  the  teaching  force.  If  it  is  permis- 
sible to  measure  and  compare  criteria  in  a  case  where 
all  the  values  are  essential,  we  are  justified  in  saying 
that  this  criterion  embraces  what  is  most  important 
in  college  organization.  The  opportunity  implied  in 
the  multiplication  of  courses,  the  accumulation  of 
books,  additions  to  apparatus  and  equipment,  are  all 
essential  things  but  their  value  depends  entirely  up- 
on the  instructors  who  use  them.  This  value  is  large 
or  small  as  the  instructor  is  large  or  small.  After 
all  the  most  difficult  problem  the  college  has  to  face 
is  the  problem  of  securing  teachers  who  will  give 
value,  full  value,  to  the  books,  the  apparatus,  and  the 
opportunities  it  offers. 

Garfield's  ^e  laugh  as  a  matter  of  course  at  Gar- 
Remark  field's  definition  of  a  college,  but  there  is 
a  principle  implied  in  President  Garfield's  remark 
which  is  of  universal  application.  It  is  simply  this, 
that  the  man  gives  the  value.  A  log  and  a  man  con- 
ceivably are  a  better  college  than  a  physical  labora- 
tory without  a  man.  Values  must  have  incarnation, 
and  it  requires  the  right  sort  of  teaching  ability  to 
achieve  this  end.  A  college  that  wishes  to  hold  its 
ground  on  its  merits,  needs  as  its  teachers  men  with 
something  more  than  training.  That  is  taken  for 
granted.  It  needs  men  who  have  those  ele- 
ments of  personality  which  will  give  the  largest 

(36) 


possible  living  value  to  dead  equipment.  They 
must  perform  the  miracle  again  and  again  of 
making  dry  bones  live.  Such  teachers  are  not  avail- 
able on  demand  at  any  chance  time.  Such  men  and 
women,  without  doubt,  consider  other  things  beside 
money  in  accepting  a  call,  but  I  want  to  suggest  this 
warning,  that  a  man  with  adequate  training  and  ex- 
perience and  with  the  right  appreciation  of  the  dig- 
nity and  worth  of  his  calling,  is  more  likely  to  be  se- 
cured if  a  comfortable  living  is  assured  him,  and  a 
reasonable  amount  of  leisure  with  necessary  books 
and  apparatus.  And  what  is  more  important,  he  is 
more  likely  to  be  retained  under  such  favoring  cir- 
cumstances after  he  is  secured.  However  much  we 
may  dislike  the  implication,  it  is  a  fact  that,  generally 
speaking,  one  thousand  dollar  positions  command  one 
thousand  dollar  men,  and  that  the  scale  of  worth  as 
measured  by  college  requirements,  increases  with  the 
scale  of  wage.  It  is  unreasonable  for  colleges  to  ex- 
pect to  hold  twenty-five  hundred  dollar  men  in  one 
thousand  dollar  positions,  and  right  at  that  point  is 
the  crucial  element  in  the  problem.  These  men  must 
be  kept,  speaking  generally  again,  or  the  college — 
any  college — will  lose  rank  as  an  educational  institu- 
tion. College  education  at  the  present  day  is  not 
pitched  on  an  eight  hundred  or  one  thousand  dollar 
scale.  It  is  pitched  higher  and  the  inevitable  result 

(37) 


\ 


for  the  institution  not  up  to  the  requirement,  on  the 
material  side  of  the  case,  is  not  only  lack  of  adjust- 
ment with  the  reasonable  demands  of  the  people  in- 
terested in  college  work,  but  loss  of  reputation  and 
influence  in  the  educational  world.  Too  often  it  hap- 
pens that  a  college  is  obliged  to  yield  to  the  pressure 
of  local  influences  that  are  in  no  way  related  to  edu- 
cational conditions.  The  genuine  college,  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  is  not  a  local  institution.  It  is  meas- 
ured by  general  and  national  standards,  and  there  is 
no  surer  way  to  destroy  its  efficiency  and  permanency 
than  to  apply  to  it  in  management  and  organization, 
a  treatment  that  does  not  harmonize  with  accepted 
standards,  and  which  manifestly  can  not  win  general 
recognition. 

The  Unifying  Three  criteria  have  been  named  for 
Element—  determining  the  character  of  a  col- 
Fourth  Criterion  lege.  They  are  tangible  criteria. 
They  may  be  measured  approximately  and  estimated. 
They  involve  what  is  essential  to  the  college  in  its 
more  external  elements;  but  it  needs  to  be  added  that 
the  three  criteria  might  be  satisfied,  that  all  of  the 
elements  under  each  head  might  be  present  in  good 
proportion,  without  making  in  fact  the  peculiar  insti- 
tution which  we  call  the  college.  As  separate  and 
unrelated  things  they  do  not  make  a  college,  for  the 
college  involves  implicitly  the  idea  of  unity,  fellow- 
OS) 


ship,  interrelation  and  identity  of  purpose  between 
subjects  that  are  de  par tmen tally  distinct.  The  aim 
of  college  education  will  be  always  to  unify  man's  in- 
terests, to  help  him  to  see  things  in  their  entirety,  to 
put  him  into  conscious  adjustment  with  the  rest  of 
the  universe.  Trained  men  working  in  separate  de- 
partments, each  caring  only  for  his  own  special  inter- 
ests even  though  the  conditions  are  favorable  to  large 
results,  can  not  create  the  genuine  college.  If  there 
is  to  be  a  college  there  must  be  a  complete  integration 
of  interests  that  externally  seems  diverse,  and  the 
most  cordial  departmental  relationships;  and  this 
condition  will  be  realized  only  when  all  aims  center 
in  the  individual  student  rather  than  in  the  subject 
or  the  departments.  The  college  hence  must  center 
its  interests  in  the  man,  must  make  him  the  object  of 
its  devotion  and  enthusiasm,  and  must  send  him  forth 
conscious  of  his  relationship  with  the  world  and 
ready  in  some  sense  for  practical  and  effective  con- 
tact with  the  concrete  problems  of  life.  This  result 
cannot  be  achieved  by  departmental  isolation:  the  ab- 
sence of  such  a  result  should  at  once  invalidate  the 
claim  of  any  institution  to  be  called  a  college.  There 
should  of  course  be  special  opportunities  under  spe- 
'  cial  conditions,  as  already  suggested  in  this  paper , 
but  these  are  not  to  be  at  variance  with  the  general 
purpose  and  aims  of  the  college,  but  in  correlation 

(39) 


therewith,  and  are  to  have  their  justification  in  the 
contribution  they  offer  to  the  identification  of  the  col- 
lege and  its  ideals  with  practical  life  and  its  needs. 
With  these  suggestions  in  view  a  fourth  criterion 
should  be  added  to  the  other  three  which  may  be 
called  the  spirit  of  unity — the  spirit  which  brings  to- 
gether all  the  complex  and  diverse  elements  in  col- 
lege education  and  makes  them  tributary  to  one  pur- 
pose This  purpose  is  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual man  by  giving  a  broad  and  liberal  view  of 
things,  by  giving  him  a  way  of  approach  to  an  active 
life,  and  by  fostering  in  him  the  elements  of  genuine 
character.  "This  pre-eminently  is  the  function  of  the 
college.  It  is  a  function  in  its  entirety  that  differen- 
tiates it  clearly  from  the  secondary  school  on  the  one 
hand  and  from  the  professional  and  graduate  school 
on  the  other.  It  furnishes  a  reason  sufficient  to  estab- 
lish conclusively  the  claims  of  the  college  to  perpetuity, 
and  this  it  will  secure  if  the  college  itself  aims  to  a 
full  consciousness  of  the  obligations  resting  upon  it. 
The  College  The  college  of  the  twentieth  century  must 
in  the  meet  twentieth  century  requirements. 
Twentieth  The  problem  of  college  authorities  is  this: 
Century  to  see  to  it  that  the  proper  adjustment  is 
made  between  the  college  of  this  century  and  its  edu- 
cational and  personal  environment.  The  college  like 
any  other  human  institution  is  needed  because  it  re- 

(40) 


spends  to  a  need.  Thisdoesnotmeanthatthe  college  is 
to  forget  the  past  and  negiect  the  future,  giving  heed 
only  to  the  present.  It  is  to  correlate  the  three,  and 
give  them  in  due  proportion  validity  in  each  individ- 
ual so  that  a  genuine  and  symmetrical  development  is 
achieved.  The  college  is  an  institution  of  a  past  age 
if  it  gives  its  allegiance  primarily  to  an  antiquated 
system,  however  good  it  may  have  been  and  however 
good  it  may  be  now  intrinsically.  A  system  that  has 
vitality  in  it  grows,  and  needs  readjustment  with 
every  new  day.  The  principles  on  which  the  system 
is  based  may  be  eternal.  The  ideals  which  have  se- 
cured partial  realization  through  it  may  be  eternal, 
and  as  essential  today  as  ever.  But  a  duty,  a  funda- 
mental duty,  for  educators  is  to  foster  and  perpetuate 
the  permanent  ideals  of  the  race,  and  to  keep  active 
the  abiding  principles,  arnid  the  multifarious  demands 
of  modern  education  and  the  increasing  perplexities 
of  modern  social  conditions. 

The  Con-  The  college  that  can  stand  the  test  of  the 
elusion  criteria  named  has  its  own  life  to  live  and 
its  owrn  lessons  to  teach.  It  stands  on  an  equality 
with  representative  educational  institutions.  It  may 
be  independent,  courageous  and.  perfectly  sure  of  its 
future.  Of  course  there  are  personal  and  incidental 
reasons  why  one  parent  would  prefer  a  city  institu- 
tion, another  an  institution  in  a  small  town.  For 

(41) 


similar  reasons  one  will  prefer  an  eastern,  another  a 
western  college;  one  a  large  and  another  a  small  col- 
lege. But  the  college,  the  real  college,  with  material 
equipment  and  with  men;  with  traditions  and  ideals, 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  such  incidental  causes.  It 
will  have  its  problems,  of  course,  but  they  will  be  the 
problems  of  living  and  growth.  If  it  meets,  as  it 
ought,  the  needs  of  the  generation  and  grows  with 
those  needs,  every  generation  will  contribute  to  its 
prosperity  and  security. 

Having  discussed  briefly  some  of  the  duties  and 
problems  of  the  college,  I  want  to  say  finally  that  I 
believe  profoundly  in  Iowa  College.  I  believe  in  its 
ideals,  and  in  their  permanency.  I  believe  in  its 
aims,  and  in  the  possibility  of  their  realization.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  spirit  of  life  is  in  its  ideals  and  that 
they  will  constantly  renew  themselves  in  the  enlarg- 
ing life  of  the  coming  century. 

And  now  I  ask  you — alumni,  trustees,  students, 
friends — to  renew  your  faith,  your  courage,  your  en- 
thusiasm, so  that  working  in  harmony  together  we 
shall  make  of  Iowa  College  what  its  noble  past 
demands,  and  what  its  future  expects. 


